Gael Garcia Bernal

"I go with the flow. Whatever music you play for me, I'll dance." – Gael Garcia Bernal

As he drinks from the same cup of international success as his good friend Diego Luna, Mexican export Gael Garcia Bernal is a multifaceted actor and aspiring producer/director who improves his prospects with each new film that he shares with us. Having wowed his home audiences and international film fans in foreign language films such as Amores perros, Y tu mama tambien and The Motorcycle Diaries, he has now struck a promising new chord with North American audiences for his roles in recent indies like Babel, The Science of Sleep and The Limits of Control.

MAGNETISM

Gael Garcia Bernal was already considered a teen sex symbol to ladies south of the border during his time on Mexican soap operas, but he's only grown to be more appealing to ladies in adulthood. The camera goes wild for his distinctive eyebrows and enticing stare and women can't seem to get enough of it. The actor's desirability factor reached a peak when Empire magazine ranked him No. 65 on the list of the 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in the World and Vanity Fair nominated him for the honor of Most Handsome Man in the World. Even though Gael Garcia Bernal is "really ridiculously good looking" (in the words of Derek Zoolander), he's humble and modest about the attention, saying, “It feels nice when people say nice things about you, even if they’re talking about your feet.”

One reason why Gael Garcia Bernal may choose to wear a humble face when dealing with questions about his sex appeal is because he's at a point in life where his responsibilities and relationships have settled down. Having previously been involved with costars and admirers like Natalie Portman and Cecilia Suarez, he's now the long-term boyfriend of actress Dolores Fonzi and they have a young son, Lazaro.

SUCCESS

Gael Garcia Bernal won the Chopard Trophy for Male Revelation at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, and he has continued to reveal more sides of his seemingly endless supply of talent in the years following. He hasn't won an Oscar, but he picks his projects well and has appeared in no less than six Oscar-nominated films (De Tripas, Corazon; Amores Perros; El Crimen del Padre Amaro; Y Tu Mama Tambien; The Motorcycle Diaries; and Babel). There's no doubt that Gael Garcia Bernal would like an Oscar statue for his awards shelf, but he'll have to squeeze it in with the other 16 international awards that he's won as an actor, most notably for his films Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) and La Mala Educacion (Bad Education).

As comfortable playing a political legend (Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries) as he is a lonely dreamer (in Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep), Gael Garcia Bernal has maintained a steady creative upswing since his beginnings in Mexican soap operas. Now tackling directing projects like Deficit and producing critically lauded films like Sin Nombre, Gael Garcia Bernal enjoys stretching his creative capacities, but he still gets the most satisfaction from acting. That's to be expected from a guy whose upcoming films will see him working with the lovely Amanda Seyfried (Letters to Juliet) and the master director Martin Scorsese (Silence).

Gael Garcia Bernal Biography

With a model mother and director father, Gael Garcia Bernal entered the world with beautiful and creative genes, and after taking his first acting role as Jesus only a year into his life, his fate as an actor was sealed. Though he enjoyed learning about chemistry in school and teaching people to read, Gael Garcia Bernal enjoyed acting a whole lot more and became a soap opera star as a teen on Mexico-based hits like 1989's Teresa and 1992's El Abuelo Y Yo. The latter starred his fellow countryman Diego Luna, and the two of them were on their way to great heights.

After a university closure stalled his philosophy studies, Gael Garcia Bernal bid adios to deep thinking, Mexico and his soap opera hunk image. He left for London's well-respected Central School of Speech and Drama, where he was the first Mexican to study there. Another Mexican, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, found him there and asked him to audition for the 2000 film, Amores Perros (known internationally as Love's a Bitch). Gael Garcia Bernal faked illness to leave school for a week and auditioned to play a dog handler in a forbidden romance with his very pregnant sister-in-law. The finished film was an acclaimed hit that was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film.

gael garcia bernal stars in the motorcycle diaries and babel

If Amores Perros showed that Gael Garcia Bernal had the acting chops to carry a film, his next role as Julio in the spicy Oscar-nominated road movie Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) proved that he had movie star potential. In the film, Gael Garcia Bernal also had the awkward task of kissing his good friend Diego Luna, but the actor received many kudos on the festival circuit for his performance, including an acting award named for one of his idols, Marcello Mastroianni, at the Venice Film Festival. In 2004, Gael Garcia Bernal pushed his acting abilities even further by embodying noted political figure Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries and playing multiple roles (including drag queen) in Pedro Almodovar's La Mala Educacion (Bad Education).

Gael Garcia Bernal made the switch over to the English language for The King before teaming up with the eccentric director Michel Gondry for 2006's The Science of Sleep. In the film, he starred as an introvert whose dreams mix with reality as he romances Charlotte Gainsbourg. That same year, he re-teamed with his Amores Perros director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu to play an alcoholic trying to cross the Mexican border in the Oscar-winning Babel, a film top-lined by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

gael garcia bernal stars in deficit and letters to juliet

Already a successful actor, Gael Garcia Bernal expanded his creative horizons by taking on additional producing and directing duties on his next set of films. 2007's Deficit played at the Toronto International Film Festival and featured him in an acting role. More importantly, it was Gael Garcia Bernal's directorial debut. He would stay behind the camera for 2008's ambitious effort 8, which was a collaborative collection of short films from eight different directors including Gus Van Sant and Mira Nair.

After costarring again with Diego Luna in the soccer comedy Rudo y Cursi (Rough and Vulgar) and top-lining the international drama Mammoth with Michelle Williams, Gael Garcia Bernal played a key supporting role in the 2009 ensemble crime drama The Limits of Control, directed by noted American indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch. As he looks forward, Gael Garcia Bernal will continue to mesh with big name costars and highly respected directors. In 2010, he will costar with Amanda Seyfried in Letters to Juliet, about a woman who finds a letter addressed to the iconic Shakespeare character. He will also begin filming the 17th century-set religious drama, Silence for director Martin Scorsese.